This article contains some considerations and insight into the Target Device local hard drive caching and the boot process.

Local Cache and Boot Process

Here is what happens when using local hard drive caching and booting:

1. Provisioning Server checks to see where the location of the pagefile is set:

• If it is set to C:, it modifies the registry to set it to D: E: F: (yes, all three).

• This is why it is recommended that if you are using local hard drive cache and you can set your page file to the local drive, (for example D:\); this would be done on the vDisk in private image mode.

2. Provisioning Server checks the size of the local partitions to determine where to locate the cache file. The process is:

• If the cache file already exists, it is deleted.

• If the partition free space is larger than the vDisk size, Provisioning Server stops searching and uses this partition for local cache file.

• If no partition is larger than the vDisk size the partition with the largest free space will be used (All partitions will be searched).

• The local partition must have at least 500MB free to be considered for local cache.

• If no partition has 500MB free, the client defaults to server side cache.

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Citrix has released Provisioning Services 5.1 Service Pack 2 for download.

Biggest news in this release is that it now supports Windows Server 2008 R2.

Here is the list of hotfixes that is included in SP2:

• Hotfix-8803/9015: OROM/BDM/Bootstrap fixes
• Hotfix-9009: When assigning two vDisks to a target during boot, Target fails to load if vDisks have printers assigned to them.
• Hotfix-9027: Changing network ports for the PVS server and using DNS name for BDM will fail as login server still defaults to 6910 on the client.
• Hotfix-9110: Incorrect logging format prevents client side debug string to be logged into Stream log.
• Hotfix-9111: While booting from the Dell OROM clients appear to be suffering from an intermittent PXE timeout that the server cannot recover from.
• Hotfix-9112: Client hangs when using XenServer 5.0 and XenServer 5.5 and running a network intensive application.
• Hotfix-9113: DELL OROM PRODUCT DHCP client doesn't respond to multiple DHCP Offer packet offers.
• Hotfix-9115: Newly created vDisk(s) shows up as 1 gig in size on the target machine.
• Hotfix-9116: Device table is not indexed correctly.

Check out the release notes for more information

Citrix Provisioning Services 5.1 SP1, SP2 Administrator's Guide

Citrix Provisioning Services 5.1 SP1, SP2 Installation and Configuration Guide

Click here to download and read more ( requires mycitrix.com account )

This article describes how to Administratively Assign Printers for Workgroup Branch Offices.

In a branch office scenario, where many targets are grouped into workgroups from a single image, printing must be configured both in the vDisk creation, and managed in the Citrix Provisioning Server console. In some cases, client personality strings can be used to ease the management and insure correct printer settings. Citrix Provisioning Server for Endpoints includes the ability to administratively assign certain printers, which were created on the vDisk, to certain endpoint targets. Additionally, certain information about the printer object can be uniquely configured per device using client personality strings.

Background

In this example, assume the following scenario:

1. Thousands of branch objects, thousands of endpoints, using a single centrally configured vDisk

2. Branch offices using IP printing, no standard IP pattern for assigning printer IP's

3. No configurable DNS in the branch locations

4. Twelve different printer device types

5. Each user needs at least two printers, and some will have three printers assigned

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